


The Letter

by NotLostAnymore



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotLostAnymore/pseuds/NotLostAnymore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2012, Steve is given a letter. He knows it's from Peggy so why can't he read it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Letter

The paper is rough in my hands. Old and worn. Not like the pristine white of the modern age paper. I had never really stopped to consider how different everything was. Not just everything, but the little things. The feel of paper. The taste of the water. The amount of streetlights. It wasn’t just the skyscrapers and the people, but the small things I’d taken for granted. The things I’d never thought could change.

Can I open it? I know I should, it has my name on the envelope. Tony said it had been in his father’s study after he died but I know it isn’t Howard’s. The writing’s too feminine, too fragile. I can almost make out the long dried teardrops on the paper. Almost smell the delicate perfume she always wore. But then, at the same time, I know I’m dreaming it all. There’s no way the little things last that long. Not anymore.

I put the letter back on my desk. Stare at it for a few hours. Maybe longer. Maybe it’s been days. I can hear Natasha and Clint talking outside my door. They’re worried and yet I can’t find it in myself to leave the room. To assure them that I haven’t wasted away in grief.

No, not grief. Because although I know Peggy couldn’t have waited for me, I refuse to believe that she’s gone. That’s what holds me back – the letter could be filled with reassurances but how much would it hurt to hear them? I want her to have been happy but at the same time, the thought of her being with someone else hurt like a pain I’d never experienced. Just two weeks ago and she’d been there in front of me. The briefest of kisses before I left to fight the Skull. Before I crashed the plane and slept for seventy years.

No, I don’t want to read the letter. I want to be selfish. To pretend there is some way back to her. 

But deep in my heart, I know Peggy would have hated me for being selfish. I was never going to control her life, even if I’d been awake with her all those years. It was time to be Captain America again. Face the fear head on.

I open the envelope.


End file.
